Sunday, September 11, 2016

If Hillary Wins In November, Blame Sean Hannity

Perhaps no commentator or pundit working today is more terminally puerile than Sean Hannity, and his latest outburst on Twitter (though it is invariably the same outburst) was directed at National Review’s Jonah Goldberg: “If you choose to sabotage [Donald Trump],” he tweeted at Goldberg, “and [Hillary Clinton] wins, then u will OWN the damage!”

This is, in fact, Hannity’s favorite insult to hurl at conservatives (actual conservatives, not the ersatz Trump-worshiping kind): that any principled stand against the colossal monstrosity of Trump’s candidacy will be an albatross around the neck of every dissident conservative pundit moving forward. “If [Clinton] does win,” Hannity scolded Goldberg, “I will hold you responsible. Own it!!!!”

Here is a modest counterpoint: if Hillary Clinton does win the presidency, it will be, in no small part, Sean Hannity’s fault.

There are, of course, a multitude of reasons Trump is the Republican presidential nominee: voters’ dissatisfaction with the GOP, their profoundly misguided assumption that Trump is trustworthy in any sense of the word, the billions of free media Trump received during the primaries, the overlarge and divided Republican primary field.

Pucker-up Sean

But the one consistent political factor that has worked in Trump’s favor since he announced his candidacy more than a year ago has been Hannity’s unflagging support. Trump has appeared on “Hannity” nearly once a week since last June, so much so that one writer characterized Hannity’s Trump coverage as “a serialized infomercial spanning nearly an entire year.”

In Hannity’s defense, he has grilled Trump pretty hard during these appearances. In March, for instance, he asked Trump the one thing that’s been on everyone’s minds: “Is there any state you don’t have property in?”